Living Pay Check By Pay Essay

Living or subsistence wage is amount of income needed to maintain basic standard of living. Theoretically, this wage should bring people out of poverty if implemented. The real take home wage for most workers are far below this ‘utopic’ living wage. Absence of living wage for most workers has been recognized as a contributing factor to the difficult task of upward social mobility with resultant diminishing equality of opportunity and relative poverty for most workers in this country today. The concept of working poor is born out of this dystopic social stratification. The threat this and other social determinant factors posed to the realization of the lofty goal of ‘American Dream’ are the subject of this paper.

The American Dream doesn’t run on magic and fairy dust, it is fueled by hard-earned American dollars, persistence, and hope. Most modern, working class families can’t expect to receive a reasonable income to cover things such as medical expenses and emergencies. With that said, the stay-at-home parent trying to reach the goal of a perfect oasis is even more taboo. It’s hard to achieve this “dream”, when you’re the only breadwinner in your household. Parents can no longer live comfortably, and in some cases even survive, on one person’s income. The costs of homes, transportation, and education combined with incredibly low wages often leaves families in a crippling financial situation, making it virtually impossible to, “keep up with the Jones’s.”

“The Economic Policy Institute recently reviwed dozens of studies of what constitutes a “living wage” and came up with an average figure of $30,000 a year for a family of one adult and two children, which amounts to a wage of $14 an hour.” (213). According to Ehrenreich, about 60 percent of American workers earn less than $14 per hour. In all of places where Ehrenreich worked paid seven dollars or less per hour, which means those of people who work in those place cannot even afford to have some essentials services such as health insurance and telephone. Since they cannot even struggle to get out, politicians could takee an action; however, they didn't do any works. “The Democrats are not eager to find flaws in the period of “unprecedented prosperity” they take credit for; the Republicans have lost interest in the poor now that “welfare-as-we-know-it” has ended.” (217). And, they also had a catastrophic error. “In fact, very little is known about the fate of former welfare recipients because the 1996 welfare reform legislation bithely failed to incude any provision for monitoring their postwelfare economic condition.” (217). Congressmen need to read this book to realize the problem, and not satisfy themselves by ignoring failures because they have

“Despite huge advancements in technology and productivity, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. The real median income of male workers is $783 less than it was 42 years ago; while the real median income of female workers is over $1,300 less than it was in 2007. That is unacceptable and that has got to change.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that as of 2015, 100% of married couples had at least one family member employed, including 19.4% of married-couple families had no one working. In 36% of that 100, the man was employed in that relationship. The possible reason why so many Americans aren’t working could be due to the fact that the way money is distributed in America isn’t what the people think it is, and it isn’t even close to the ideal. Uneven distribution of wealth is the cause of poverty is the United States, and here’s why.

Together, they made around $83,000 and had around $90,000 in assets which placed them solidly in the middle class. Twelve years later, Allison and David experienced setbacks but increased their income to about $125,000. Their financial assets quadrupled to a whopping $368,000 and saved up thousands of dollars for retirement. However, with the economy downsizing on the heels of the Great Recession and uneven job recovery heavily tilted toward low-wage jobs, David joined millions of other Americans in unemployment. Having spent half a year unemployed, David returned to work working at a significantly lower wage. Over the course of 12 years, David witnessed how work became less stable and more contingent for many Americans. The working experience illustrates a larger transformation in America’s employment landscape, away from middle-class jobs and jobs with significant benefits toward low-paying jobs with few benefits, accelerated by the Great Recession.

McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and cleaning services: all of these have one thing in common-they are all minimum wage jobs. Their pay is low and work load high, and because of this living as a low wageworker is never easy. One must handle many hardships in order to make a few meager dollars, with which most cannot sufficiently live. 'The 'living wage' in the United States is between $9-10.18; sounds great to a college student, but in the real world this kind of money just isn't going to cut it,' (Ramisch). Minimum wage standards for American workers rest at $5.15 per hour, and in such slighted fields, very few make much more than that, perhaps $6-7, but even that is a rarity. The material life of a low-income employee includes bare necessities

“Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich reveals the shocking truth of trying to live on minimum wage in the United States. Barbara Ehrenreich, a journalist, decides to experiment living on a low-income job after discovering the welfare reform legislation in 1996. She tries to survive on minimum wage for a month in three US cities; Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis. In Key West Florida, she learned about the challenges of working in a lower class job and trying to “get by.” The only way to afford basic necessities is by having two jobs or to have someone help pay, such as a working husband.

There is not one state in the US where a minimum wage worker can afford a two-bedroom unit at fair market rent, working a standard 40-hour work week(There are a few states where this is not true. Also, the fair market rent is the average cost. It doesn 't reflect the super expensive and bottom rent places). The federal minimum wage would be $10.86 [per hour] if it had kept up with inflation over the past 40 years. Instead, it is $7.25 [per hour]. Every state in the US should have the minimum wage raised to $10.86 per hour(passive, rewrite). The cost of living has increased(s) dramatically every year(,) so why shouldn’t we raise the minimum wage.(?) The value of the minimum wage has fallen by almost 50 cents since it was last increased in 1991(Fact check; the Federal minimum wage was raised in 2007 to 6.35 an hour, up from it 's 1991 rate of $5.15 per hour, and again in 2009 to $7.25 per hour). Living expenses are increasing so fast that more people are falling into the category of “lower class”. Author Tom Dickinson writes, “A family of four trying to live on the earning of a minimum-wage worker-- $15,080 a year—falls more than $8,000 below the poverty line” (Dickinson 33). (Transitional sentence?)

As the economy grows, so does the rent, and cost of food, gas, and clothes, yet one aspect that has barely made it to the finish line, is the “minimum wage”. “Nickle and Dimed” written by Barbara Ehrenreich gives you front row tickets to visualize how people live off of $6 an hour. Barbara as a successful writer, was encouraged to go as an undercover worker for minimum wage jobs. The book takes you to very in-depth details of the conditions minimum wage workers have to face. Barbara comes from a higher class job, where once she sets her own schedule and works flexible hours. Now, she drives an hour to a waitress job where the schedule is from 2pm-10pm, the pay is $2.43 an hour plus tips, and

Today, more than 28 million people, about a quarter of the workforce between the ages of 18 and 64, earn less than $9.04 an hour, which equals into a full-time salary of $18,800 a year (Conlin). There is an equally troubling yet more often overlooked problem among the nation's working poor-for some, the raises come in dimes

In the U.S., the primary source of income comes from jobs. However, people are unable to find jobs because businesses are outsourcing unskilled labor to developing countries since workers there are willing to be paid less than the average American worker. This creates problems for people who are trying to look for jobs because many lack the skills to function in a job that requires skill and will remain jobless until they find unskilled labor jobs. Since the Recession, working class families who had lost their jobs are struggling to survive due to the little job availability (Heritage Foundation, 2011). Because the majority of working class families are suffering from prolonged

Intro: People of the middle class all know that the minimum wage of $7.25 is not sufficient to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. There is considerable evidence to show that the current generations comfortable lifestyles require a more luxurious price for standard living. The cost of living over the years has dramatically increased due to high consumer demands of products. As that being said, $7.25 is just not enough for a happy lifestyle, food, and the bills. There are many jobs that dislike or just can't afford paying high wages. Therefore, many employers hire less to save money. This causes a non-sufficient pay rate for comfortable living and high unemployment

Low minimum wages affects everyday families and lives, more than the average person would think. A small minimum wage could have an very small effect on someone’s life, such as not being able to afford a new pair of boots or that new phone, contradictory to this low wages could also have a very serious effect on someone’s life . Meaning that a parent or single individual could not support their family because a lack of income, it could also mean the difference of living under a safe roof, or living in the streets. In 2016 alone, 40.6 million people in the United States

Every American dreams of finding a job that pays well enough so that they may comfortably take care of their loved ones and themselves for years to come. Most Americans hope to find some way to make a living that they enjoy, something that they view as productive. Unfortunately, many do not have this luxury. In our society, a good portion of the population is forced to hold the base of our country in place while hardly being redeemed for their time and effort, and thus the problem of income inequality. Numbers of these people live from paycheck to paycheck, barely getting by, not because they manage their money poorly, but because the value of their time at work is negligible.